Found in sagebrush, chaparral, and other scrubby, open habitats of California and western Arizona, these birds and the Sagebrush Sparrow were previously considered the same species. First known as Bell’s Sparrows, then split into two species, they were lumped again as the Sage Sparrow in the 1950s, before being split once again. They eat seeds, insects, spiders, small fruits, and vegetation in the breeding season and mostly grass and other plant seeds in the non-breeding season, foraging mostly on the ground. Females build open cup nests in or under shrubs, from twigs and grasses, lining them with fine grasses, thin bark, feathers, wool, and hair.